


23° off-kilter on the carpet

by BakanoHealthy



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: (Farah is mentioned), Coming Out, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Dirk, also this is the first draft I havent slept in over 20 hours, but also yay for actual communication, can I start the genre of communication porn, in which people talk to each others after overcoming the fear of being known, this is. kind of a coming out fic, which is only sightly complicated by surrounding circumstances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 03:44:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20333518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BakanoHealthy/pseuds/BakanoHealthy
Summary: Todd walked in on Dirk laying on the office's floor, and things went mild from there.





	23° off-kilter on the carpet

**Author's Note:**

> I am incredibly sleep-deprived as I write this note, and I was about the same amount of sleep-deprived while I wrote this fic. I have basically a feast to prepare tonight. A whole chicken to chop up. I'm so fucked. 
> 
> But also this is an idea I've talked about to a friend a while ago (thank you again Cosme for listening for me then and for fueling the Dirk Gently muse in general), one that I hold pretty near and dear to my heart, which probably isn't reflected in how I wrote this without revising, proofreading, and while sleep-deprived, but also isn't that where the true face is revealed... Being nonbinary myself, writing a small thing about nonbinary Dirk is just something I want to do for myself. And also nice, straightforward communication between friends, and all the trust and comfort it speaks of to me. 
> 
> Thank you for reading this, and I hope you enjoy.

Dirk was on the floor when Todd arrived at the office. 

Okay, it was less frightening than it sounded. All three of the office’s employees end up on the floor semi-frequently because things just happen to them now apparently, and Todd can count on one hand the amount of times it was anything actually serious. More bad things happen to them while they’re just out walking than when they lay down on the office’s floor, if he’s counting correctly and not just blacking out the terrible parts. It’s refreshing that there’s one thing in their life now that’s not lethal.

Well, that’s not really fair; their life isn’t _ that _ bad. It’s just weird. Todd doesn’t mind weird, he’s just deeply branded with being a normal asshole, and now being a weird helper feels… weird. 

Anyway: yes, coming into the office to find one of your partners and friends on the floor would be alarming, if this weren’t Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, and the person on the floor weren’t Dirk, or he were in a more curled up position if it were still him. Dirk’s reactions to bad stimuli and pain, like his sense of style and his bounciness and anything good about him really, are hard-earned and curated, so he’s entitled to letting them run their course, so if he’s in physical pain Todd will get to know. They’ve had that worked out pretty early into their professional dealings. Dirk likes to have conversations, unless he doesn’t. 

Todd has always thought Dirk is a straightforward person once one knows him. People never share his opinion on this, which is weirder than weird, because c’mon: it’s gonna take a lot of actual trying to outdo Todd when it comes to being terrible at people. 

_ Anyway _; Dirk laying on the floor: not weird. Has happened before, in fact. 

Todd checked the ceiling with a glance just to make sure nothing was tacked on there again (the ceiling was the usual blank cream), and then went to throw his laptop bag onto the couch. “We haven’t swept the floor in, uh, a week,” he said, just to throw it out there. 

Dirk caught it. “Jackets can be dry cleaned.” 

That was more curt than Todd’s used to. 

He came to stand next to Dirk’s arm on the floor. “Sure, you do whatever with your clothes, but we should sweep the floor at least. It’s the,” he checked his phone, “17th.” 

Dirk looked up at him with bleary eyes. 

Todd sighed. “Look, I’m not— I couldn’t care less about dusty carpet, I’m not gonna lie to you, but I don’t wanna disappoint Farah. She’s gonna be tired when she comes back, and if we wanna make our celebration seems genuine we’re gonna have to take care of the minute details too.” 

“Like dusty carpets,” Dirk mumbled. 

“Yeah,” Todd confirmed, crossing his arms in a valiant effort to mimic even a corner of Farah’s authority. 

They stared at each other for a moment, before Dirk looked away and muttered, “Day’s still long.” 

Todd sat down on the floor. He made a face as he lifted the hand he used to support himself on the way down. “Wow— okay, it’s dustier than I thought. It’s like— did we even sweep up after the Buzzer? We didn’t. Of course we forgot. Yeah, so… that’s not just seven days of normal dust—” 

“Please just… give me a minute,” Dirk cut him off, with a noticeable effort to be louder this time, and Todd took a deep breath and looked at him, carefully. His limbs were spread out and stiff, like a straw figure’s. His jacket was slightly damp, and his tie seemed to have flopped into its current, crumpled position when he laid down. He didn’t even move his head when he talked to Todd just then. 

Todd laid down next to Dirk. 

They stayed like that for a minute, then Dirk asked, “Why are you on the floor?” 

“I’m giving you a minute,” Todd mumbled. “Why are _ you _ on the floor?”

“Feels like the right amount of impact on my senses,” Dirk replied. “Last time this happened I also laid on the floor, and afterwards the stupid thoughts went away, so I elected to repeat the conditions this time around. Science.” 

That didn’t sound entirely right, but Todd dropped out of college to play guitar for an alt band, so. “What’s the thoughts?” 

“Alright, on review, calling them ‘thoughts’ isn’t very correct, or useful to the conversation. They’re more… feelings. Multiple, numerous, of unidentified frequency, and not lending well to words and sentences.” 

“Okay,” Todd said, “that’s definitely a not-truth at some level.” 

Dirk blew a frustrated breath. “Can’t we let it be? I’m laying on the floor staring at the ceiling. This solution has no hole. The thoughts will go away in a few minutes.” 

Todd let the silence drop for a few seconds there, and then said, as calmly as he could ever be, “But they came back though.” 

They laid there on the ground for another minute as the silence covered them; Todd glued his eyes to the cream ceiling, resolute to not look at Dirk. He could feel Dirk move his arm, and the deep breaths Dirk took. He focused on regulating his own breathing as well; he tends to forget to inhale around Dirk. 

“I don’t feel like a man today,” Dirk said, after the silence was thick enough they could float up to its surface. 

Todd didn’t expect that; he whipped his head over to look at Dirk. Dirk had an arm over his eyes, but the rest of him was maybe even more still than before he spoke. He was expecting a reaction of some kind to his statement, which— okay, that’s how conversations happen, you say something and the other person reacts and you react to that. ‘Twas just that Dirk seemed to be gearing himself up to something negative, which Todd… didn’t know where to land himself with. He wasn’t sure if Dirk knew either. 

One of the conversations Dirk wasn’t thrilled about, then. 

Todd decided to start slow. “Okay, is that a… gender statement, a mood statement, or…?” 

“Mostly gender,” Dirk said immediately, as if he feared Todd would retract the buoy if he didn’t latch onto it fast enough. “I just… sometimes I will feel intensely not like a man. Not in the way that means I’m inadequate to be one, just that I’m not one? It is usually less intense than that, I can just ignore it, but every once in a while it will morph into almost an urge to… rewrite myself. To reshape everyone’s perception of me. Even if it means…” 

Todd cleared his throat when Dirk trailed off and didn’t seem to know how to pick the thread up again. “What’s it mean?” 

“I... “ Dirk swallowed. “Even if it means I’m not human.” 

Todd took a few seconds to process that. Once it was halfway swallowed and he had about two fingers of his brain under his control again, he pushed himself up into a sitting position to stare at Dirk. 

“Okay, that’s— I’m not--” He gestured like a halfway stringed marionette, and then dropped his arm uselessly down to his side when that didn’t clear anything up. “Can you— just. Walk me through it.” 

Dirk removed the arm he had on his eyes to squint at him. 

Todd brought both of his hands up again. “Dirk, you— that’s the _ least _ weird thing about you. Or anything. I can say that because this past year has been weird as all fuck, and I can say _ that _ because the thirty-two years before it were the exact opposite. Literally after all the shit that happened to us, that’s nothing. Well it’s not, it’s— it’s important to you, so it’s important to me too, and knowing it will change things, I’m sorry I said it’s nothing, it’s that it’s— not weird. ‘S just not.” 

“I’m a tiny bit hurt, thank you, apology accepted,” Dirk said, and his eyes were tracking Todd’s motions now, okay, “and that’s not. Well, it is a part of the point, but also I’m… not normal, am I.” 

“Uh,” Todd said. 

“On many levels. Most people don’t experience the things I do, and really, I haven’t met another person of my same profession. Which is because it is a unique position required by the Universe so as It could move Its pieces around, which I am fine with, I could get used to the excitement, but something… Maybe.” Dirk swallowed. “Can it be too much?” 

“I don’t— I don’t get it.” 

“I’m tailored to a purpose,” Dirk said, and once again he was staring at the ceiling. “A lot of the things I feel are already pumped into me by that. At some point it will dictate whether something about me is necessary or not, and I just… I’m not sure where that point is.” 

Todd could only do more staring while Dirk barreled on with his thoughts to where they were supposed to end up. 

“Maybe it’s already crossed that point,” Dirk said. “Maybe I’m just a tool to be used.” 

“That’s the Blackwing speaking,” Todd said, a bit too hastily, but he felt he needed to. Dirk just exhaled wearily. 

“I know. But they haven’t been wrong about everything…” 

“Dirk,” Todd said, more firmly this time. Dirk looked at him. “They don’t even understand how your thing works. They’re terrible at what they do. You don’t— you’ve lived that firsthand, I don’t even have to tell you all this.” 

It was his turn to take a deep breath now, as he looked at Dirk and Dirk looked back. 

“You showed me weird,” he continued. “The world is fucking weird. Time travel is real, soul is extractable, there’s an eighty-year-old child making whole dimensions with a wave of his hand, my sister’s a witch travelling with energy vampires, I’m sitting here on this dusty as fuck floor talking to you. A year ago I couldn’t even imagine doing that for anyone other than Amanda. We became friends, Dirk. All of that happened.” 

He grabbed Dirk’s hand. 

“You’re human. You’re both human and not-a-man, that’s about par-for-the-course with how weird this shit all is. Honestly, even a bit subpar.” 

“I cannot be spectacularly explosive and entertaining in all areas,” Dirk said. There was a wobbly smile on his lips. Todd let out a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding. “There has to be some specialization happening somewhere.” 

He sat up, a bit shaky, and Todd tugged on his hand. He initiated the hug. Todd couldn’t say he didn’t lean into it; things had been tense for a moment. 

“Thanks for coming out to me, by the way,” he said, just to not be an asshole. “It’s really good to know.” 

“It’s about time for it to happen,” Dirk shrugged into the hug. “It’s been one year already.” 

Todd smiled. “Happy one year of doing this, huh.” 

“Happy one year of doing this.” 

“We should sweep the floor”.


End file.
